


it's in your frequency

by allourheroes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Curse Breaking, Derek Hale Returns, Hurt Derek Hale, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Snow, Soul Bond, Spark Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 09:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allourheroes/pseuds/allourheroes
Summary: Stiles wakes up early Christmas morning feeling like something is very wrong--and it's not just the fact that it'ssnowingoutside.Something is drawing him out to the Preserve.





	it's in your frequency

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Areiton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/gifts).



> I really hope you like this! ♥
> 
> Title from "Post Blue" by Placebo.

Stiles wakes up early on Christmas morning with the distinct feeling that something is very wrong, gasping and shaking and reaching for someone who isn’t there.

It’s a miracle his dad hadn’t woken up, too. Despite the lack of comforting, however, Stiles is glad. His dad had been far too exhausted coming home late in the night from his shift. It hadn’t even been a supernatural problem, just a regular people problem—the kind of people problem that only gets worse around the holidays.

It’s only 3am, Stiles realizes as he starts to process his surroundings. He’s still shivering. Maybe he just had a nightmare, but it doesn’t feel like it. (Does it _ever_ with him anymore?)

Rubbing at bleary eyes, Stiles thinks it looks unnaturally light out. There’s a weird glow coming through the window but he knows it isn’t the full moon—just past, though, so the waning gibbous is still big and bright, but not _this_ bright. It’s one thing Stiles actually keeps track of.

He gets up to at least look out the window, perhaps close the blinds even though the urgency in his veins hasn’t sizzled out, but he finds himself blinking, awed. And _confused_.

Outside, there’s a layer of snow. Real, brilliantly white snow that reflects the moonlight until everything is awash in a strange glow.

Now, Stiles has seen snow, but not in Beacon Hills. Usually they have to drive a couple of hours up into the mountains.

_Snow_.

“The hell?”

Stiles should probably take that as a sign to stay in, and yet there’s a tug in his chest. His curiosity—or something else—must urge him on because he’s throwing on layers and grabbing his keys. When he gets outside, he just stares at his Jeep for a long moment. He’s never driven in the snow before and he _has_ chains for his tires in the back, just in case. He just never thought that’d be a thing unless he, you know, _went somewhere_.

The snow isn’t that bad though, and Stiles is climbing into his car before he remembers that he should tell his dad he’s gone. Fumbling his phone out of his pocket, he sends a quick “ _be right back_ ” and then he’s driving.

Something is pulling him, drawing him out, telling him where to go. He has no idea what it is, but he can’t deny it.

He finds himself at the edges of the Preserve and his breath catches. He hasn’t really been out here since—

Since _someone_ left.

It hurts to think about him so Stiles generally tries not to. He’s tried valiantly to tell himself that Derek should’ve left and was right to leave and the million reasons why Derek _shouldn’t_ be in Beacon Hills, but it doesn’t quell the ache. Some part of him had thought— had thought that—

Well. It doesn’t matter.

Still, he’s here.

Stiles gets out, his breath coming out in large white puffs, and he stumbles because he’s not watching where he’s going. The insistent tug is harder now, stronger, and Stiles can barely keep up with his own feet as he makes his way through the trees.

The woods are deathly quiet beyond the crunch of snow and leaves beneath his shoes and he can feel his face going cold and numb.

Suddenly, sound comes back to him. He hears whispers on the wind, the occasional skittering of squirrels and birds and whatever other little creatures must live in the woods, and then he’s stopping, like he’s close enough to whatever homing beacon that he now has to figure out the exact location on his own. The thing that’s drawing him in has to be almost beneath him because he feels a thrumming down to his bones that wants to shake him out of his skin.

He spots a large pool of darkness in the stark white snow, shadowed though it may be by the trees.

Stiles approaches slowly and his heart is in his throat as it comes fully into view.

_There are no wolves in California_.

He takes another step.

A sleek black wolf is lying there in the snow and it isn’t moving. With a terror more chilling than the icy winds picking up around him, Stiles kneels beside the wolf, knees wet and probably freezing. If Stiles could feel anything except his own fear, his body would likely protest.

His hand trembles as he reaches out, smooths it gently over the wolf’s soft cheek.

Fur melts away, leaving flesh behind.

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles chokes. And he had known. As soon as he had seen the wolf, he had known without a doubt what it was, _who_ it was.

Normally, the fact that Derek is naked would be more alarming—and in some of the best ways—but right now Stiles just wonders if he’s going to freeze to death. Or if he already has.

Derek is heavy, stiff from the cold, and Stiles holds back the tears but can feel them welling up hot and desperate in his eyes, his vision blurring. He pulls Derek’s head up onto his lap and feels for a pulse and his hands are so numb it should be impossible and yet—

And yet when he touches Derek, it’s like a shockwave. He knows immediately that Derek is alive, but barely. Derek needs help, and soon.

With the kind of adrenaline strength that allows mothers to lift cars, Stiles slings Derek’s arm over his shoulder and carry-drags him back to the Jeep. It’s a whole new struggle to actually get Derek into the backseat, but he manages. He has an extra sweatshirt in the back, tossed aside a few days ago, and he places it over Derek, removes a couple of his own layers to add to the makeshift covers.

Derek moves for the first time on his own, snuffles a little into Stiles’s clothes, and Stiles breathes a sigh of relief that Derek can do even that.

Only when Derek is as settled as he’s going to get and Stiles has gotten into the driver’s seat does Stiles realize how badly he’s shaking. The adrenaline has faded enough for the ache and panic to return. It takes him a couple of minutes to even get the key into the ignition, dropping it to the floor more than once and scrambling to find it again. He swipes a hand over his face, cold on cold, like touching someone else’s skin. Flurries have formed outside, ruthless, blocking out the road and everything else.

“I need to go,” Stiles says, voice high and reedy. “I need to get him somewhere. He’s not— He’s not gonna die here.” His brain supplies the image of Derek so soon after they’d met, pale like he is now, on the verge of death like he is now.

His blood still stains the passenger seat and Stiles has to glance back, look at Derek, reassure himself that that hadn’t been the end and that Derek is here, at least in some capacity. But for how much longer?

He _needs to get out of here_.

The falling snow parts before the Jeep, keeps swirling off to the side, but not in front of him.

Stiles doesn’t hesitate, starts driving before he thinks to decide where to go. Home? To Deaton? To _Scott_?

Peter is technically Derek’s family but Stiles can’t completely rule out Peter as a culprit for this...well, whatever _this_ is that’s happening to Derek.

He hopes Deaton doesn’t have plans for the holidays as he heads toward the veterinary clinic at 4:30 in the dark.

He dials Deaton and pumps his fist victoriously when Deaton answers, sounding less sleepy than anyone really should anytime before the sun is up.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Stiles tells him, which is a push. It should be at least twenty and he should really be careful in the roads, but so far the snow has been staying out of his way. For some unknown reason that Stiles is choosing not to spend much thought on.

Stiles glances between the road and Derek the entire drive.

At the clinic, Stiles pounds on the door, having seen Deaton’s car in the lot.

“Come on, come on, you crazy—”

Deaton clears his throat behind Stiles and Stiles spins around, clutching his chest. “What was that?”

“Whatever, sorry,” Stiles puffs out. There are wet spots on Deaton’s shoulders where the snow is falling on him, melting, and Stiles looks down at himself. The snow isn’t hitting him. He glances up, sees dark, open sky, but nothing touches him.

The Jeep should be dusted in white, but it, too, is just wet with the snow that had come earlier.

Deaton reads his thoughts far too easily. “Spark,” he reiterates, and Stiles gawps at him.

He really would love to know more, but not as much as wants Derek to live. He waves Deaton over to the Jeep and opens the door slowly, doesn’t want Derek overly exposed to the cold or Deaton’s eyes—as if Deaton isn’t about to see his whole naked body anyway.

“Has he said anything? Where did you find him?”

Stiles answers Deaton as best he can as they manage to get Derek into the clinic.

“So he was just there in the snow?” Deaton emphasizes. “As a wolf? Nothing around him?” At Stiles’s shake of the head, he continues. “No blood?” Again no. Deaton pauses, his next words too deliberately casual as he starts his examination. “How did you find him?”

Stiles swallows. It’s a fair enough question to ask...at five in the morning on Christmas Day. “I just… I just found him. I woke up and I knew something was wrong and I found him.” Stiles tries to shrug it off. “Maybe it’s the spark thing, like you said.” His tongue feels too thick in his mouth, like it could choke him.

Deaton hums and continues looking over Derek, poking and prodding and testing things.

Stiles bites at his thumb and fidgets, paces, keeping his eyes on the two of them and searching Deaton’s expression for any telltale signs of what they might be dealing with. Deaton’s frown stays pretty much the same the whole time as he keeps going.

Stiles is shocked from his concentration when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He answers the call with far too much forced cheer. “Heyyy, Daddy-o. Father of mine. Father Christmas.”

“ _Where the hell are you, Stiles_?” His voice is sleep-rough, like a normal person’s should be.

“Deaton’s,” Stiles says, explaining quickly over his father’s concern that _everything is a-okay_ and that he’ll be home soon, and _you better not be eating anything fried when I get there_.

Deaton is writing notes when Stiles hangs up and Stiles bounds over, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“So?”

Letting out a sigh and glancing sidelong at Derek, Deaton’s frown actually deepens. “My best guess? Someone tried to rip out his soul and it didn’t work. It’s going to take powerful magic to bring him back to himself again. If he wakes up now…”

Deaton doesn’t continue and Stiles rolls his eyes. “If he wakes up now, what?”

“If he wakes up now, if this isn’t fixed, Derek won’t be Derek anymore. I’m not sure he’ll even be able to shift.”

Panic rises, clawing its way up Stiles’s throat. “But he’s a born werewolf and this isn’t— This isn’t like what Kate did to him? Something he can fix in himself?” He can’t even look at Derek because if Derek is going to— If Derek wakes up—

Deaton shakes his head. “Some deep part of him is broken, can’t fit into place as it should.”

Stiles wills down his anxiety, tries to concentrate on the useful parts of what Deaton said. “Powerful magic? Don’t you have, like, magic? Power? Can’t you fix him?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Stiles. Do you remember when Cora had been poisoned? Derek gave up his alpha power to save her. That’s a lot of power. This—” Deaton tilts his head. “With what’s happened, it needs to be strong. A connection might work, but it’s unlikely you would be able to…” Deaton trails off, considers Stiles in a way that Stiles does not like to be considered by Deaton. “But you found him.”

“Yeah…?” Stiles flails his hands. “What does that have to do with saving him? I don’t think ‘spark’”—complete with air quotes—“equals mega powerful magic.”

“It doesn’t,” Deaton confirms, but he’s barely listening. He starts to move to the side of the metal exam table, then looks at Stiles peevishly like Stiles should’ve known to follow.

Stiles glares at Deaton the whole five steps over and then jerks back when Deaton grabs his hand. “Whoa! What are you doing?”

Deaton inhales deeply, centering himself, and Stiles really thinks that he should be the annoyed one, not Deaton. “Stiles, I need you to remain calm, for Derek’s sake.”

Stiles goggles at him, but then he very purposefully rolls his shoulders, tries to even out. “Why?” he asks, as _calmly_ as he can.

“Because if this doesn’t work, things may get worse.” Deaton doesn’t give Stiles a chance to react after that, instead taking a scalpel and slicing it across Stiles’s palm, then Derek’s. “Grab his hand, quickly!” he urges.

“But—” Stiles knows you aren’t supposed to press gaping wounds together. It sounds like the most basic tenet of hygiene that one can possibly follow, and yet, here he is, slotting his sliced palm against Derek’s. “What is this supposed to—”

He can _feel_ it, can feel Derek stitching back together inside. Stiles nearly falls to his knees, but Derek’s hand is gripping his tightly.

“Don’t let go,” Deaton tells him, as if Stiles could.

He doesn’t have the energy to spare to shoot Deaton an incredulous look because there’s a conduit between him and Derek, life force flowing back and forth through it until Stiles can’t help but close his eyes, exhausted.

He’s being tugged upright by the grip on his hand and, groggily, he stares...into Derek’s now open eyes.

“It worked,” Deaton says, sounding smug. “Derek, I think you should be the one to explain.”

“Explain?” Stiles asks, still blinking, still exhausted.

Derek is sitting on the exam table and pulls Stiles closer to hold him up, looking far too amazed and guilt-ridden all at once.

“You and Deaton and your stupid mysteries,” Stiles murmurs, but he falls against Derek’s chest anyway. “Was it the spark?”

Stiles feels more than sees the way Derek shakes his head.

“Then, what?” Stiles pushes back, wants to look into Derek’s face.

“You want the whole story?” Derek asks, obviously struggling with the idea of it

Stiles shakes his head, but points a finger in Derek’s face. “But _later_ , yes. Just the”—and he gestures between them, to their hands—“this thing right now. Because I think I’m going to pass out in, like, two seconds.” He pushes the finger into Derek’s chest accusingly.

“I don’t know everything about it,” Derek says, “but I know what I felt. I’ve never— I never thought I would feel it.”

“Feel _what_ exactly?” Stiles demands.

Derek lifts their conjoined hands and closes his eyes. Breathes in, out.

Stiles can feel something wiggling its way through them, something grasping him— No, not _grasping_. Holding. Safety and comfort and rightness.

Derek opens his eyes, squeezes Stiles’s hand. “You’re my mate.”

“‘Mate,’” Stiles repeats, but he starts to nod, everything making sense in his fuzzy brain.

“It’s a lot,” Derek tells him, scoops him up into his arms. “Sleep.”

Stiles starts to nod, then shakes his head. “Christmas!” he shouts, trails off again. “Gotta...home...dad…”

“Okay.” Derek carries Stiles to the car with far more grace than Stiles had done to Derek. After he grabs some clothes from Deaton, he drives Stiles home.

In his sleep, Stiles grabs for Derek’s hand, lets out a happy sigh when Derek holds on.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments keep me warm in the winter. ♥
> 
> **Happy Holidays!**


End file.
